Red Lodge Rodeo

Folks, I have to make a confession. When Meriam and I got in our seats at the July 4th rodeo, I pulled out my camera to check it out. Guess what I found (or actually did not find)…the storage chip the camera records its photographs! In all the years I have been doing photography, this is the first time :=(. So, no photographs by me from the rodeo. Since this was a major event rodeo, all the photographs I could find are copyrighted. If you have a desire to see some great photographs of the rodeo, click on the following link https://redlodgerodeo.com/ So sorry!

Devil’s Canyon Outlook

Driving from Red Lodge up into the Big Horn Mountains, we passed the cutoff to one of our favorite adventures…Pryor Mountains Wild Horse Range. Viewing the wild horses in this range requires a guide. Since we visited (and photographed) the horses the last time we came this way, we decided to forgo seeing them again. Instead, we stopped at a remarkable lookout over looking the Big Horn River as it continued its millennial process of cutting out the Big Horn Canyon far below our observation location.

Bighorn River far below

Off-Roading on Big Horn Mountain, WY

After we visited the mountain goats, we continued our trek up to the top of the Bighorn Mountains where we stayed at the Bear lodge Resort at Burgess Junction. As we did in 2017, we took another off-road adventure in this area. There are literally hundreds of miles of off-road adventure in the area.

Following the Pioneer Trails…and Scotts Bluff National Monument

One of the most enjoyable aspects of our traveling in the West (Utah, Wyoming, Nevada, Montana, and Idaho) has been discovering and visiting the various trails and historic sites taken by our early Westbound settlers.

On a number of our previous trips, we have bypassed the Scotts Bluff National Monument. Much to our chagrin, we were never able to visit the Monument because of our truck camper. It was too high to pass through the three tunnels that are part of the roadway passage. However, as we no longer have the camper we took this opportunity to visit.

The Scotts Bluff served as an important landmark on the Oregon Trail, California Trail, and Pony Express Trail, and was visible at a distance from the Mormon Trail. Over 250,000 westward emigrants passed by Scotts Bluff between 1843 and 1869. It was the second-most referred to landmark on the Emigrant Trails in pioneer journals and diaries.

Scotts Bluff in the distance. With the surrounding flat terrain, one can easily see why the bluff was used as a iconic marker. (Photo courtesy of National Park Service)

A closer view of Scotts Bluff. (Photo courtesy of National Park Service)